The Anglo-Saxon rulers paid large sums, Danegelds, to Vikings, who mostly came from Denmark and Sweden who arrived to the English shores during the 990s and the first decades of the 11th century. Some runestones relate of these Danegelds, such as the Yttergärde runestone, U 344, which tells of Ulf of Borresta who received the danegeld three times, and the last one he received from Canute the Great. Canute sent home most of the Vikings who had helped him conquer England, but he kept a strong bodyguard, the Þingalið, and its members are also mentioned on several runestones.[3]

The vast majority of the runestones, 27, were raised in modern-day Sweden and 17 in the oldest Swedish provinces around lake Mälaren. In contrast, modern-day Denmark has no such runestones, but there is a Danish runestone in Scania that mentions London. There is also a runestone in Norway and a Swedish one in Schleswig, Germany.

Some Vikings, such as Guðvér did not only attack England, but also Saxony, as reported by the Grinda Runestone Sö 166 in Södermanland:[1]

Below follows a presentation of the England Runestones based on information collected from the Rundata project, organized according to location. The transcriptions from runic inscriptions into standardized Old Norse are in the Swedish and Danish dialect to facilitate comparison with the inscriptions, while the English translation provided by Rundata give the names in standard dialect (the Icelandic and Norwegian dialect).

This secluded runestone is located in a grove near Väsby, Uppland, Sweden. It was raised by a Viking in commemoration of his receiving one danegeld in England. It is classified as being carved in runestone style Pr3 and, together with U 344, it has been said to be the earliest example of an Urnes style inscription in Uppland.[5] The runic text follows a common rule to only carve a single rune for two consecutive letters, even when the letters were at the end of one word and the beginning of a second word.[6] When the text shown as Latin characters, the transliterated runes are doubled and separate words are shown. For U 194 has three examples where this occurred, þinoftiʀ is transliterated as þino| |oftiʀ, tuknuts as tuk| |knuts, and anklanti as a| |anklanti.

This runestone is one of the Lingsberg Runestones and was part of a paired monument with U 240. It is located on the courtyard of the estate Lingsberg in Uppland. It was raised by the grandchildren of Ulfríkr in commemoration of his receiving two danegelds in England. It is carved in runestone style Pr3.

"And Danr and Húskarl and Sveinn had the stone erected in memory of Ulfríkr, their father's father. He had taken two payments in England. May God and God's mother help the souls of the father and son."[8]

The runestone U 344, in the style Pr3, was found in 1868, at Yttergärde, by Richard Dybeck,[9] but it is today raised at the church of Orkesta, see Orkesta Runestones. Together with U 194, it is considered to be the earliest example of the Urnes style in Uppland.[5]

The runes are written from right to left with the orientation of the runes going in the same direction, but the last words outside the runic band have the usual left-right orientation.[9] It can be dated to the first half of the 11th century because of its use of the ansuz rune for the a and æ phomenes, and because of its lack of dotted runes.[10]

This runestone is located at the church of Husby-Sjuhundra. It is one of the older runestones as it is in the style RAK. It is raised in memory of Sveinn who intended to go to England but died en route in Jutland. Omeljan Pritsak comments that Sveinn probably died in the Limfjord, Jutland, as the fjord was usually the starting point for campaigns against England.[15] Jansson dates Svein's death to 1015, when Canute the Great's great invasion fleet had been assembled in the Limfjord, a fleet that had many young warriors from Uppland.[16] When the fleet departed for England, Sveinn was no longer aboard.[16]

The hope that God and God's mother would treat the man better than he deserved is an expression that appears on several runestones, and it is not understood as an expression of his having a bad character but it is a request that he should be favoured in the afterlife.[17]

This runestone is located at Tång, and it is raised in memory of a man who died in battle in England. It is classified as being carved in runestone style Pr1, but the runemaster is considered to have had little experience in the craft. The runic text contains a bind rune, which is a ligature combining two runes, for an a-rune and a l-rune, which may have been done simply to save space.[19]

This runestone is carved in runestone style Pr2 and was raised at the church of Hjälsta. It was raised in memory of a man's father who died in England. Based on its size and runic text, it has been suggested that U 812 was once part of a coupled monument located in a cemetery, but that the runestone with the first half of the overall text has been lost.[21] Other pairs of runestones that may have formed a coupled monument in a cemetery are U 49 and U 50 in Lovö and Sö Fv1948;282 and Sö 134 in Ludgo.[21]

This stone is located in the wall of the church of Gamla Uppsala. It is carved in runestone style Pr2 and made of sandstone. It was made by a man who called himself "traveller to England" in memory of his father.

This runestone was found in Hormesta, and it is one of the older runestones as it is classified as being carved in runestone style RAK, which is considered to be the oldest style. It is raised by two men in memory of their brother who died in England.

This runestone in Bjudby was raised by a man in memory of his son Hefnir who went to England and back, and instead of having a warrior's death overseas, he died at home. Due to the use of the ansuz rune for the o phoneme, Erik Brate argues that Hefnir participated in a late 11th-century expedition to England.[26] He suggests that Hefnir was part of the invasion force sent to England by Sweyn Estridsson, in 1069, and which was intended to defeat William the Conqueror's Normans.[27] The invasion had been planned for two years, but William the conqueror bought off the commander of the force who was Sweyn Estridsson's brother Asbjörn.[27] The inscription is in runestone style Pr2 and was carved by two runemasters whose names are normalized as Slode and Brune. Brune's signature is also on Sö 178 at Gripsholm Castle.

"Þorsteinn had this stone raised in memory of himself and his son Hefnir. The young valiant man travelled to England; then died grievously at home. May God help their souls. Brúni and Slóði, they carved this stone."[28]

This runestone has disappeared but it was located at the church of Tumbo. It is classified as possibly being in runestone style Pr4. The inscription has been attributed based on stylistic analysis to the runemaster Näsbjörn, and what little remained of the stone when it was discovered said that a man drowned in England.

This runestone which is located in Grinda is in the style RAK. It is raised in memory of a father who divided up gold in England and attacked some towns in northern Germany. According to Omeljan Pritsak, the gold which was divided was part of the danegeld,[31] and Erik Brate argues that it was the same expedition as the one mentioned on the Berga Runestone.[32]

This runestone is located in Berga and is classified as being carved in runestone style Fp. It was carved by the same runemaster as the Ingvar runestone Vs 19. Similar to the inscription on U 194, the runic text has an example where a single rune was used for two consecutive letters with one at the end of one word and the other at the start of a second word.[6] The runemaster on both Vs 18 and Vs 19 used the same runes trekuþan which were transliterated to show two letters and separate words as trek| |kuþan. Vs 18 and Vs 19 were also sponsored by the same person, Gunnvaldr.

This is a fragment that remains of a runestone. It was found in 1927 in Västra Hästbo near the church of Torsåker, and today it is almost hidden behind a pillar inside the church. It is in sandstone and it is one of the older runestones as it is carved in runestone style RAK. This the classification for inscriptions with runic band ends which do not have any attached serpent or beast heads. The runic text indicates that it was raised in memory of a man who went to England. The last word has a bind rune that combines a k-rune and u-rune, but it has been suggested that this was done to correct an error made when carving the text.[38]

This runestone is located in Gillberga. It is in the style Fp and it is raised in memory of a brother who died in England. The stone is located near an ancient road and was raised to its current position in 1866.

This runestone is dated to around 1025, and it was raised in memory of a father who died in England. It was discovered in 1950 lying with the text downwards on the property of the farm Kallerstad, only 200 metres from Ög 113. It was probably found in its original location since a road used to pass the stone. The stone had been broken into two pieces, but was reassembled and raised outside of the county museum of Linköping. The stone is in greyish red granite and it is 3.95 m tall (2.98 above soil) and 1.43 m wide, and the surface is quite weathered. The name Vígfastr is otherwise unattested on runestones and also the name Helga was quite rare.[41] It is carved in runestone style Fp.[42]

The Rundata designation for this Östergötland inscription, Ög Fv1950;341, refers to the year and page number of the issue of Fornvännen in which the runestone was first described.

This runestone is located in Transjö. It is one of the older stones as it is in the style RAK. The runes are unusual as the m-runes are dotted () and the k-runes have a stroke to the left instead of to the right. The stone was raised in memory of a son who died in England named Ketill, who was described as being óníðingr. Óníðingr, which with the ó- prefix means the opposite of the Old Norse pejorative word níðingr, was used to describe a man as being virtuous and is translated in the Rundata database as "unvillainous." It is used as a descriptive term on inscriptions Sö 189 in Åkerby, Sm 37 in Rörbro, Sm 147 in Vasta Ed, and DR 68 in Århus, and appears as a name or part of a name on inscriptions Ög 77 in Hovgården, Ög 217 in Oppeby, Sm 2 in Aringsås, and Sm 131 in Hjortholmen.[43] The text on Sm 5, Sm 37, and Ög 77 use the same exact phrase manna mæstr oniðingʀ or "most unvillainous of men" to describe the deceased,[43] and DR 68 uses a variant of this phrase.[44]

Latin transliteration:

A : kotr : sati : sten : þana : eftʀ : ketil :

B : sun : sin : han : faʀ :

C : mana : mesr o:niþikʀ : eʀ a : eklati : ali : tunþi

Old Norse transcription:

A Gautr satti stæin þenna æftiʀ Kætil,

B sun sinn. Hann vaʀ

C manna mæstr oniðingʀ, eʀ a Ænglandi aldri tyndi.

English translation:

A "Gautr placed this stone in memory of Ketill"

B "his son. He was"

C "the most unvillainous of men, who forfeited his life in England."[45]

This runestone is raised on the cemetery of the church of Berga. It is classified as being in runestone style RAK and it is consequently one of the older runestones. It is raised in memory of a man who died in England.

Latin transliteration:

--rþr * ris(t)i * kuml * þe... ... ...-aþis * o * eklanti *

Old Norse transcription:

[Þo]rðr ræisti kumbl þe[ssi]/þe[tta] ... [ænd]aðis a Ænglandi.

English translation:

"Þórðr raised this/these(?) monument(s) ... met his end in England."[46]

This runestone is located in Sävsjö, and it is raised by Vrái in memory of a brother who died in England. Later, Vrái would also receive a memorial, the nearby Komstad Runestone which tells that Vrái had been the marshall (stallari) of an earl Hakon,[48] who was probably the earl Håkon Eiriksson.[16][31]

This runestone is located in Galteland in Aust-Agder. It is an older runestone as it is classified as being in runestone style RAK. It was raised in memory of a son who died in service with the army of Canute the Great when he attacked England.

1.
England runestones
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The England runestones is a group of about 30 runestones that refer to Viking Age voyages to England. They were engraved in Old Norse with the Younger Futhark, the Anglo-Saxon rulers paid large sums, Danegelds, to Vikings, who mostly came from Denmark and who arrived to the English shores during the 990s and the first decades of the 11th century. Canute sent home most of the Vikings who had helped him conquer England, but he kept a strong bodyguard, the Þingalið, the vast majority of the runestones,27, were raised in modern-day Sweden and 17 in the oldest Swedish provinces around lake Mälaren. In contrast, modern-day Denmark has no such runestones, but there is a Danish runestone in Scania that mentions London, there is also a runestone in Norway and a Swedish one in Schleswig, Germany. There are eight runestones in Uppland that mention voyages to England, several of them were raised in memory of men who had partaken in the Danegeld in England. This secluded runestone is located in a grove near Väsby, Uppland and it was raised by a Viking in commemoration of his receiving one danegeld in England. It is classified as being carved in runestone style Pr3 and, together with U344, it has been said to be the earliest example of an Urnes style inscription in Uppland. The runic text follows a rule to only carve a single rune for two consecutive letters, even when the letters were at the end of one word and the beginning of a second word. When the text shown as Latin characters, the runes are doubled. For U194 has three examples where this occurred, þinoftiʀ is transliterated as þino| |oftiʀ, tuknuts as tuk| |knuts, hann tok Knuts giald a Ænglandi. English translation, Áli/Alli had this stone raised in memory of himself and he took Knútrs payment in England. This runestone is one of the Lingsberg Runestones and was part of a monument with U240. It is located on the courtyard of the estate Lingsberg in Uppland and it was raised by the grandchildren of Ulfríkr in commemoration of his receiving two danegelds in England. It is carved in runestone style Pr3, hann hafði a Ænglandi tu giald takit. Guð hialpi þæiʀa fæðga salu ok Guðs moðiʀ, English translation, And Danr and Húskarl and Sveinn had the stone erected in memory of Ulfríkr, their fathers father. He had taken two payments in England, may God and Gods mother help the souls of the father and son. The runestone U344, in the style Pr3, was found in 1868, at Yttergärde, by Richard Dybeck, together with U194, it is considered to be the earliest example of the Urnes style in Uppland. The runes are written right to left with the orientation of the runes going in the same direction

2.
Swedish language
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Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken natively by more than 9 million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, where it has equal legal standing with Finnish. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish, along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era. It is currently the largest of the North Germanic languages by number of speakers, Standard Swedish, spoken by most Swedes, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the rural dialects still exist. The standard word order is, as in most Germanic languages, V2, Swedish morphology is similar to English, that is, words have comparatively few inflections. There are two genders, no cases, and a distinction between plural and singular. Older analyses posit the cases nominative and genitive and there are remains of distinct accusative and dative forms as well. Adjectives are compared as in English, and are inflected according to gender, number. The definiteness of nouns is marked primarily through suffixes, complemented with separate definite and indefinite articles, the prosody features both stress and in most dialects tonal qualities. The language has a large vowel inventory. Swedish is also notable for the voiceless velar fricative, a highly variable consonant phoneme. Swedish is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic branch of the Germanic languages, by many general criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Continental Scandinavian languages could very well be considered dialects of a common Scandinavian language. In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had some changes. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, the dialects of Old East Norse that were spoken in Sweden are called Runic Swedish while the dialects of Denmark are referred to as Runic Danish. The dialects are described as runic because the body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, from 1200 onwards, the dialects in Denmark began to diverge from those of Sweden. An early change that separated Runic Danish from the dialects of Old East Norse was the change of the diphthong æi to the monophthong é. This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain, there was also a change of au as in dauðr into a long open ø as in døðr dead

3.
Runestone
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A runestone is typically a raised stone with a runic inscription, but the term can also be applied to inscriptions on boulders and on bedrock. The tradition began in the 4th century and lasted into the 12th century, most runestones are located in Scandinavia, but there are also scattered runestones in locations that were visited by Norsemen during the Viking Age. Runestones are often memorials to dead men, Runestones were usually brightly coloured when erected, though this is no longer evident as the colour has worn off. The tradition of raising stones that had runic inscriptions first appeared in the 4th and 5th century, in Norway and Sweden, the earliest Danish runestones appeared in the 8th and 9th centuries, and there are about 50 runestones from the Migration Period in Scandinavia. Most runestones were erected during the period 950-1100 CE, and then they were raised in Sweden. —The Ynglinga saga What may have increased the spread of runestones was an event in Denmark in the 960s, King Harald Bluetooth had just been baptised and in order to mark the arrival of a new order and a new age, he commanded the construction of a runestone. The runestone has three sides of two are decorated with images. On one side, there is an animal that is the prototype of the animals that would be commonly engraved on runestones. Shortly after this stone had been made, something happened in Scandinavias runic tradition, scores of chieftains and powerful Norse clans consciously tried to imitate King Harald, and from Denmark a runestone wave spread northwards through Sweden. In most districts, the fad died out after a generation, but, in the central Swedish provinces of Uppland and Södermanland, there are about 3,000 runestones among the about 6,000 runic inscriptions in Scandinavia. The runestones are unevenly distributed in Scandinavia, Denmark has 250 runestones, Sweden has as many as between 1,700 and 2,500 depending on definition. The Swedish district of Uppland has the highest concentration with as many as 1,196 inscriptions in stone, outside of Scandinavia, the Isle of Man stands out with its 30 runestones from the 9th century and early 11th century. Scattered runestones have also found in England, Ireland, Scotland. Runestones were placed on selected spots in the landscape, such as locations, roads, bridge constructions. In medieval churches, there are often runestones that have been inserted as construction material, in southern Scania, runestones can be tied to large estates that also had churches constructed on their land. In the Mälaren Valley, the appear to be placed so that they mark essential parts of the domains of an estate, such as courtyard, grave field. Runestones usually appear as single monuments and more rarely as pairs, in some cases, they are part of larger monuments together with other raised stones. However, although scholars know where 95% of all runestones were discovered, the remainder have been found in churches, roads, bridges, graves, farms, and water routes

4.
Viking Age
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The Viking Age is the period from the late 8th century to the mid-11th century in European history, especially Northern European and Scandinavian history, following the Germanic Iron Age. It is the period of history when Scandinavian Norsemen explored Europe by its seas and rivers for trade, raids, colonisation and conquest. Three Viking ships had beached in Weymouth Bay four years earlier, the Viking devastation of Northumbrias Holy Island was reported by the Northumbrian scholar Alcuin of York, who wrote, Never before in Britain has such a terror appeared. Vikings were portrayed as violent and bloodthirsty by their enemies. The chronicles of medieval England portrayed them as rapacious wolves among sheep, the first challenges to the many anti-Viking images in Britain emerged in the 17th century. Pioneering scholarly works on the Viking Age reached a readership in Britain. Archaeologists began to dig up Britains Viking past, linguistics traced the Viking-Age origins of rural idioms and proverbs. New dictionaries of the Old Norse language enabled more Victorians to read the Icelandic Sagas, the Vikings who invaded western and eastern Europe were chiefly pagans from Denmark, Norway and Sweden. They also settled in the Faroe Islands, Ireland, Iceland, peripheral Scotland, Greenland and their North Germanic language, Old Norse, became the mother-tongue of present-day Scandinavian languages. By 801, a central authority appears to have been established in Jutland. In Norway, mountainous terrain and fjords formed strong natural boundaries, communities there remained independent of each other, unlike the situation in Denmark which is lowland. By 800, some 30 small kingdoms existed in Norway, the sea was the easiest way of communication between the Norwegian kingdoms and the outside world. It was in the 8th century that Scandinavians began to build ships of war, the North Sea rovers were traders, colonisers and explorers as well as plunderers. There are various theories concerning the causes of the Viking invasions, for people living along the coast, it would seem natural to seek new land by the sea. Another reason was that during this period England, Wales and Ireland, the Franks, however, had well-defended coasts and heavily fortified ports and harbours. Pure thirst for adventure may also have been a factor, a reason for the raids is believed by some to be over-population caused by technological advances, such as the use of iron, or a shortage of women due to selective female infanticide. Although another cause could well have been caused by the Frankish expansion to the south of Scandinavia. Consequently, these Vikings became raiders, in search of subsistence, There is ongoing debate among scholars as to why the Scandinavians began to expand during the 8th through 11th centuries

5.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years

6.
Greece runestones
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The Greece runestones are about 30 runestones containing information related to voyages made by Norsemen to the Byzantine Empire. They were made during the Viking Age until about 1100 and were engraved in the Old Norse language with Scandinavian runes, all the stones have been found in modern-day Sweden, the majority in Uppland and Södermanland. On these runestones the word Grikkland appears in three inscriptions, the word Grikkar appears in 25 inscriptions, two stones refer to men as grikkfari and one refers to Grikkhafnir. The stones vary in size from the small whetstone from Timans which measures 8.5 cm ×4.5 cm ×3.3 cm to the boulder in Ed which is 18 m in circumference. Most of them are adorned with various styles that were in use during the 11th century, and especially styles that were part of the Ringerike style. Several stones were documented by Richard Dybeck in the 19th century, the latest stone to be found was in Nolinge, near Stockholm, in 1952. Swedish Viking ships were common on the Black Sea, the Aegean Sea, Greece was home to the Varangian Guard, the elite bodyguard of the Byzantine Emperor, and until the Komnenos dynasty in the late 11th century, most members of the Varangian Guard were Swedes. As late as 1195, Emperor Alexios Angelos sent emissaries to Denmark, Norway, stationed in Constantinople, which the Scandinavians referred to as Miklagarðr, the Guard attracted young Scandinavians of the sort that had composed it since its creation in the late 10th century. The later version, which was written down from 1250 to 1300, also the old Norwegian Gulaþingslög contains a similar law, but if goes to Greece, then he who is next in line to inherit shall hold his property. About 3,000 runestones from the Viking Age have been discovered in Scandinavia of which c.2,700 were raised within what today is Sweden, as many as 1,277 of them were raised in the province of Uppland alone. The Viking Age coincided with the Christianisation of Scandinavia, and in many districts c. 50% of the inscriptions have traces of Christianity. In Uppland, c. 70% of the inscriptions are explicitly Christian, the runestone tradition probably died out before 1100, and at the latest by 1125. Among the runestones of the Viking Age,9. 1–10% report that they were raised in memory of people who went abroad, and the runestones that mention Greece constitute the largest group of them. In addition, there is a group of three or four runestones that commemorate men who died in southern Italy, and who were members of the Varangian Guard. These two provinces are those that have the greatest concentrations of runic inscriptions, still, some runestones tell of men who returned with increased wealth, and an inscription on a boulder in Ed was commissioned by a former captain of the Guard, Ragnvaldr. The reasons for the tradition are a matter of debate but they include inheritance issues, status. Several runestones explicitly commemorate inheritance such as the Ulunda stone and the Hansta stone, a common view held by scholars such as Erik Moltke and Sven B. F. They may be called the monuments of the Viking voyages, Sawyer, on the other hand, reacts against this commonly held view and comments that the vast majority of the runestones were raised in memory of people who are not reported to have died abroad

7.
Ingvar runestones
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The Ingvar Runestones is the name of c.26 Varangian Runestones that were raised in commemoration of those who died in the Swedish Viking expedition to the Caspian Sea of Ingvar the Far-Travelled. The Ingvar expedition was the single Swedish event that is mentioned on most runestones, and in number, they are surpassed by the c.30 Greece Runestones. It was an expedition taking place between 1036 and 1041 with many ships. The Vikings came to the shores of the Caspian Sea. Few returned, as many died in battle, but most of them, including Ingvar, beside the Tillinge Runestone in Uppland and a rune stone on Gotland, the Ingvar Runestones are the only remaining runic inscriptions that mention Serkland. Below follows a presentation of the runestones, but additional runestones that are associated with the expedition are, Sö360, U513, U540, U785, Vs 1-2, Vs 18 and it was located at Steninge Palace, but it is now lost. Johan Bureus, one of the first prominent Swedish runologists, visited Steninge on May 8,1595, only 50 years later it had disappeared and in a letter written in 1645 it was explained that the stone had been used in the construction of a new stone jetty. The inscription contained an Old Norse poem, Ingvar, the leader of the expedition, has a name meaning the god Ings warrior. This runestone is attributed to the runemaster Äskil, latin transliteration, Old Norse transcription, Hærlæif ok Þorgærðr letu ræisa stæin þenna at Sæbiorn, faður sinn. Es styrði austr skipi með Ingvari a Æistaland/Særkland, English translation, Herleif and Þorgerðr had this stone raised in memory of Sæbjôrn, their father, who steered a ship east with Ingvarr to Estonia/Serkland. This runestone in style Fp is located at Ekilla bro and it is raised in memory of the same man as U654, below. The same family also raised the runestone U643 and which reports the death of Andvéttr, omeljan Pritsak suggests that he may have died in Vladimir of Novgorods attack on Constantinople in 1043. The monument is more than 2 metres high, and it was mentioned for the first time in the 17th century during the revision of historic monuments. It was at the time lying under the bridge that crossed the river north of Ekilla. It would remain lying there until 1860, when it was moved with great difficulty by Richard Dybeck, after one failed attempt a crew of 12 men managed to move it out of the water and raise it 25 metres north of the bridge, where it still remains. Next to it, there are two barrows and a monument of raised stones, there were formerly two other runestones at the bridge, but they were moved to Ekolsund in the early 19th century. One of them speaks of the family as U644. The inscription is finished with a Christian prayer, which shows that the family was Christian and it is of note that andinni is in the definite form, as this is a grammatic category that appears in Old Norse at the end of the Viking Age

8.
Old Norse
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Old Norse was a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during about the 9th to 13th centuries. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century, Old Norse was divided into three dialects, Old West Norse, Old East Norse and Old Gutnish. Old West and East Norse formed a continuum, with no clear geographical boundary between them. For example, Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway, although Old Norwegian is classified as Old West Norse, most speakers spoke Old East Norse in what is present day Denmark and Sweden. Old Gutnish, the more obscure dialectal branch, is included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations. It developed its own features and shared in changes to both other branches. The 12th century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders and Danes spoke the same language, another term used, used especially commonly with reference to West Norse, was norrœnt mál. In some instances the term Old Norse refers specifically to Old West Norse, the Old East Norse dialect was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, settlements in Kievan Rus, eastern England, and Danish settlements in Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in settlements in the East. In the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language, in Kievan Rus, it survived the longest in Veliky Novgorod, probably lasting into the 13th century there. Norwegian is descended from Old West Norse, but over the centuries it has heavily influenced by East Norse. Old Norse also had an influence on English dialects and Lowland Scots and it also influenced the development of the Norman language, and through it and to a smaller extent, that of modern French. Various other languages, which are not closely related, have heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman dialects, Scottish Gaelic. The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi, of the modern languages, Icelandic is the closest to Old Norse. Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system, contemporary Icelandic-speakers can read Old Norse, which varies slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the phonemes, has changed at least as much as in the other North Germanic languages. Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, although Swedish, Danish and the Norwegian languages have diverged the most, they still retain asymmetric mutual intelligibility. Speakers of modern Swedish, Norwegian and Danish can mostly understand each other without studying their neighboring languages, the languages are also sufficiently similar in writing that they can mostly be understood across borders

9.
Younger Futhark
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The reduction, somewhat paradoxically, happened at the same time as phonetic changes led to a greater number of different phonemes in the spoken language, when Proto-Norse evolved into Old Norse. Thus, the language included distinct sounds and minimal pairs which were not separate in writing, the Younger Futhark is divided into long-branch and short-twig runes, in the 10th century further expanded by the Hälsinge Runes or staveless runes. The lifetime of the Younger Futhark corresponds roughly to the Viking Age, usage of the Younger Futhark is found in Scandinavia and Viking Age settlements abroad, probably in use from the 9th century onward. During a phase from about 650 to 800, some inscriptions mixed the use of Elder and Younger Futhark runes, by the late 8th century, the reduction from 24 to 16 runes was complete. The main change was that the difference between voiced and unvoiced consonants was no longer expressed in writing, other changes are the consequence of sound changes that separate Old Norse from Proto-Norse and Common Germanic. The first ætt was reduced to its first six letters, fuþąrk, the second ætt lost the æ and p runes. The j rune was rendered due to Old Norse sound changes. The old z rune was kept but moved to the end of the row in the only change of letter ordering in Younger Futhark. The third ætt was reduced to four runes, losing the e, ŋ, o and d runes, the names of the 16 runes of the Younger futhark are recorded in the Icelandic and Norwegian rune poems. The exceptions to this are, yr which continues the name of the unrelated Eihwaz rune, thurs and kaun, in cases the Old Norse, Anglo-Saxon. The Younger Futhark is divided into long-branch and short-twig runes, the difference between the two versions has been a matter of controversy. Later other runic inscriptions with the runes were found in other parts of Sweden. They were used between the 10th and 12th centuries, the runes seem to be a simplification of the Swedish-Norwegian runes and lack certain strokes, hence the name staveless. They cover the set of staves as the other Younger Futhark alphabets. This variant has no assigned Unicode range, in the Middle Ages, the Younger Futhark in Scandinavia was expanded, so that it once more contained one sign for each phoneme of the old Norse language. Inscriptions in medieval Scandinavian runes show a number of variant rune-forms. Medieval runes were in use until the 15th century, of the total number of Norwegian runic inscriptions preserved today, most are medieval runes. Notably, more than 600 inscriptions using these runes have been discovered in Bergen since the 1950s and this indicates that runes were in common use side by side with the Latin alphabet for several centuries

10.
Danegeld
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The Danegeld was a tax raised to pay tribute to the Viking raiders to save a land from being ravaged. It was called the geld or gafol in eleventh-century sources, the term Danegeld did not appear until the early twelfth century. In Anglo-Saxon England tribute payments to the Danes was known as gafol, in England, a hide was an area of land sufficient to support one family. It was a measurement of value and was the basis for the land-tax that became known as Danegeld, initially it was levied as a tribute to buy off the Danes but when the Viking threat diminished it was retained as a permanent land-tax to pay for the realms defence. The Viking expeditions to England were usually led by the Danish kings, but they were composed of warriors all over Scandinavia. Following Æthelred the kings of England used the tax collection method to fund their own standing armies. Heregeld was abolished by Edward the Confessor in 1051 and it was actually the Norman administration who referred to the tax as Danegeld. One manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle said Olav Tryggvason led the Viking forces, in 994 the Danes, under King Sweyn Forkbeard and Olav Tryggvason, returned and laid siege to London. Further payments were made in 1002, and in 1007 Æthelred bought two years peace with the Danes for 36,000 troy pounds of silver. In 1012, following the capture and murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the sack of Canterbury, in 1016 Sweyn Forkbeards son, Canute, became King of England. This kind of extorted tribute was not unique to England, according to Snorri Sturluson and Rimbert, Finland, in fact, the Primary Chronicle relates that the regions paying protection money extended east towards Moscow, until the Finnish and Slavic tribes rebelled and drove the Varangians overseas. Similarly, the Sami peoples were forced to pay tribute in the form of pelts. A similar procedure existed in Iberia, where the contemporary Christian states were largely supported on tribute gold from the taifa kingdoms. It is estimated that the amount of money paid by the Anglo-Saxons amounted to some sixty million pence. Everywhere the tax was farmed by local sheriffs, records of assessment and income pre-date the Norman conquest, indicating a system which James Campbell describes as old, but not unchanging. Judith Green states that from 1110, war and the White Ship calamity led to increases in taxation efforts. By 1130 Henry I was taxing the danegeld annually, at two shillings on the hide. That year, according to the chronicle of John of Worcester the king promised to suspend the danegeld for seven years, Henry II revived the danegeld in 1155–56, but 1161–62 marks the last year the danegeld was recorded on a pipe roll, and the tax fell into disuse

11.
Denmark
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The term Danish Realm refers to the relationship between Denmark proper, the Faroe Islands and Greenland—three countries constituting the Kingdom of Denmark. The legal nature of the Kingdom of Denmark is fundamentally one of a sovereign state. The Faroe Islands and Greenland have been part of the Crown of Denmark since 1397 when the Kalmar Union was ratified, legal matters in The Danish Realm are subject to the Danish Constitution. Beginning in 1953, state law issues within The Danish Realm has been governed by The Unity of the Realm, a less formal name for The Unity of the Realm is the Commonwealth of the Realm. In 1978, The Unity of The Realm was for the first time referred to as rigsfællesskabet. The name caught on and since the 1990s, both The Unity of The Realm and The Danish Realm itself has increasingly been referred to as simply rigsfællesskabet in daily parlance. The Danish Constitution stipulates that the foreign and security interests for all parts of the Danish Realm are the responsibility of the Danish government, the Faroes received home rule in 1948 and Greenland did so in 1979. In 2005, the Faroes received a self-government arrangement, and in 2009 Greenland received self rule, the Danish Realms unique state of internal affairs is acted out in the principle of The Unity of the Realm. This principle is derived from Article 1 of the Danish Constitution which specifies that constitutional law applies equally to all areas of the Danish Realm, the Constitutional Act specifies that sovereignty is to continue to be exclusively with the authorities of the Realm. The language of Denmark is Danish, and the Danish state authorities are based in Denmark, the Kingdom of Denmarks parliament, with its 179 members, is located in the capital, Copenhagen. Two of the members are elected in each of Greenland and the Faroe Islands. The Government ministries are located in Copenhagen, as is the highest court, in principle, the Danish Realm constitutes a unified sovereign state, with equal status between its constituent parts. Devolution differs from federalism in that the powers of the subnational authority ultimately reside in central government. The Self-Government Arrangements devolves political competence and responsibility from the Danish political authorities to the Faroese, the Faroese and Greenlandic authorities administer the tasks taken over from the state, enact legislation in these specific fields and have the economic responsibility for solving these tasks. The Danish government provides a grant to the Faroese and the Greenlandic authorities to cover the costs of these devolved areas. The 1948 Home Rule Act of the Faroe Islands sets out the terms of Faroese home rule, the Act states. the Faroe Islands shall constitute a self-governing community within the State of Denmark. It establishes the government of the Faroe Islands and the Faroese parliament. The Faroe Islands were previously administered as a Danish county, the Home Rule Act abolished the post of Amtmand and these powers were expanded in a 2005 Act, which named the Faroese home government as an equal partner with the Danish government

12.
Sweden
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Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre. Approximately 85% of the lives in urban areas. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear, Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in very mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. Today, Sweden is a monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state. The capital city is Stockholm, which is also the most populous city in the country, legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister, Sweden is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, the last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. The union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905, leading to Swedens current borders, though Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars, Sweden engaged in humanitarian efforts, such as taking in refugees from German-occupied Europe. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and it is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. The modern name Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod and this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige literally means Realm of the Swedes, excluding the Geats in Götaland, the etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning ones own, referring to ones own Germanic tribe

13.
Ulf of Borresta
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Ulf of Borresta was a runemaster in the eleventh century Uppland, Sweden, and a successful Viking who returned from England three times with a share of the Danegeld. He is named after his estate which in modern Swedish is called Borresta or Bårresta, Ulf belonged to a clan in what is today the parish of Orkesta, and he was the paternal nephew and successor of a man named Ónæmr, a name which means slow learner. Ónæmr is mentioned on runestones, U112, U336. The name of Guðlaugs father on U328 is interpreted as Ónæmr, another cousin of Ulf named Ragnvaldr was the commander of the Varangian Guard in Constantinople and made the runestone U112 in memory of himself and his mother, Ónæmrs daughter. Ulf made the runestone U328 and also the runestone U336 in memory of his uncle Ónæmr which today is raised at the church of Orkesta and he also made the runestones U160 and 161 for his kinsmen-by-marriage in Skålhammar. There were seven runestones which were raised in Ulfs memory and they were raised together as a monument at Yttergärde, U343 has disappeared but U344 is now raised at the church of Orkesta. The runestone U344, in the style Pr3, was found in 1868, at Yttergärde, by Richard Dybeck. It can be dated to the first half of the 11th century because of its use of the rune for the a and æ phomenes. This stone is notable because it commemorates that Ulf had taken three danegelds in England, the first one was with Skagul Toste in 991, the second one with Thorkel the High in 1012 and the last one with Canute the Great in 1018. Since there were many years between the danegelds, it is likely that Ulfr returned to Sweden after each danegeld to live as a wealthy magnate and it is a remarkable feat in itself to summarize Ulfs adventurous life in so few unsentimental words. The runestone U343 reports Ulfs death and it was raised in his memory by his sons Karsi, distributed by Harvard University Press for the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute

14.
Cnut the Great
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King Cnut the Great, also known as Canute, was King of Denmark, England, and Norway, together often referred to as the Anglo-Scandinavian or North Sea Empire. After his death, the deaths of his heirs within a decade, the medieval historian Norman Cantor said he was the most effective king in Anglo-Saxon history, though he was Danish and not a Briton or Anglo-Saxon. Cnuts father was Sweyn Forkbeard, King of Denmark, the identity of his mother is uncertain, although medieval tradition makes her a daughter of Mieszko I. As a Danish prince, Cnut won the throne of England in 1016 in the wake of centuries of Viking activity in northwestern Europe and his accession to the Danish throne in 1018 brought the crowns of England and Denmark together. Cnut maintained his power by uniting Danes and English under cultural bonds of wealth and custom, after a decade of conflict with opponents in Scandinavia, Cnut claimed the crown of Norway in Trondheim in 1028. The Swedish city Sigtuna was held by Cnut and he had coins struck there that called him king, but there is no narrative record of his occupation. Cnut attempted to gain concessions on the tolls his people had to pay on the way to Rome from other magnates of medieval Christendom, the Anglo-Saxon kings used the title king of the English. Cnut was ealles Engla landes cyning—king of all England, Cnut was a son of the Danish Prince Sweyn Forkbeard, who was the son and heir to King Harald Bluetooth from a line of Scandinavian rulers central to the unification of Denmark. Neither the place nor the date of his birth are known, Harthacnut was the semi-legendary founder of the Danish royal house at the beginning of the 10th century, and his son, Gorm the Old, was the first in the official line. Harald Bluetooth, Gorms son and Cnuts grandfather, was the Danish king at the time of the Christianization of Denmark, Cnut was two years old when his grandfather, Harald Bluetooth, died, and his father, Sweyn Forkbeard, assumed the throne. The Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg and the Encomium Emmae report Cnuts mother as having been a daughter of Mieszko I of Poland, since in the Norse sagas the king of Vindland is always Burislav, this is reconcilable with the assumption that her father was Mieszko. Different theories regarding the number and ancestry of Sweyns wives have been brought forward, Cnuts brother Harald was the first born and crown prince. His date of birth, like his mothers name, is unknown, contemporary works such as the Chronicon and the Encomium Emmae, do not mention this. Even so, in a Knútsdrápa by the skald Óttarr svarti and it also mentions a battle identifiable with Sweyn Forkbeards invasion of England and attack on the city of Norwich, in 1003/04, after the St. Brices Day massacre of Danes by the English, in 1002. If it is the case that Cnut was part of this, his birthdate may be near 990, if not, and the skalds poetic verse envisages another assault, such as Forkbeards conquest of England in 1013/14, it may even suggest a birth date nearer 1000. There is a passage of the Encomiast with a reference to the force Cnut led in his English conquest of 1015/16, here it says all the Vikings were of mature age under Cnut the king. He had a fair complexion none-the-less, and a fine, thick head of hair and his eyes were better than those of other men, both the handsomer and the keener of their sight. Hardly anything is known for sure of Cnuts life until the year he was part of a Scandinavian force under his father, King Sweyn and it was the climax to a succession of Viking raids spread over a number of decades

15.
Scania
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Scania, also known by its local name Skåne, is the southernmost province of Sweden which consists of a peninsula on the southern tip of the Scandinavian Peninsula and some islands close to it. Scania is roughly equivalent to the modern Skåne County, the responsibility for overseeing implementation of state policy in the county is administered by the County Administrative Board. Within Scania there are 33 municipalities that are independent and separate from the Scania Regional Council which has its seat in Kristianstad, the largest city is Malmö, which is also the third largest city in Sweden. To the north, Scania borders the provinces of Halland and Småland, to the northeast Blekinge, to the east and south the Baltic Sea and Bornholm island, since 2000 a road and railway bridge, the Øresund Bridge, bridges the sound to the Danish island of Zealand. The HH Ferry route across the part of Øresund also remains as an important link between the Scandinavian Peninsula and Zealand. Scania is part of the transnational Øresund Region, Scania was part of the kingdom of Denmark up until the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658. The transition to Sweden was later confirmed by the 1660 Treaty of Copenhagen, the 1679 Peace of Lund, the last serious Danish attempt to invade the province failed in 1710, after the Battle of Helsingborg. The period 1658–1720 saw widespread violence by the Swedish militaries against the local population, the same was also true about the Danish military, though to a far lesser extent. The region did not form part of Sweden proper until 1720 and it was then divided in two counties and has since then been regarded as fully integrated in Sweden. Until the early 19th century, a policy of forced assimilation was employed by the Swedish government in what then had been a linguistically Danish region. Controversy relating to whether the Scanian dialects should be classified as a language or as Danish or Swedish dialects remains to this day. From north to south Scania is around 130 kilometres and covers less than 3% of Swedens total area, about 16% of Scanias population is foreign-born. With 120 inh/km2 Scania is the second most densely populated province of Sweden, the western part, along the coast of the Øresund, is by far the most populated part. The endonym used in Swedish and other North Germanic languages is Skåne, the Latinized form Scania occurs especially in British English as an exonym. Scania is the only Swedish province for which exonyms are still used in many languages, e. g. French Scanie, Dutch and German Schonen, Polish Skania, Spanish Escania, Italian Scania. For the provinces modern administrative counterpart, Skåne län, the endonym Skåne is used in English, in the Alfredian translation of Orosiuss and Wulfstans travel accounts, the Old English form Sconeg appears. The names Scania and Scandinavia are considered to have the same etymology, the name is possibly derived from the Germanic root *Skaðin-awjã, which appears in Old Norse as Skáney. According to some scholars, the Germanic stem can be reconstructed as *Skaðan- meaning danger or damage, Skanör in Scania, with its long Falsterbo reef, has the same stem combined with -ör, which means sandbanks

16.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area

17.
Norway
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The Antarctic Peter I Island and the sub-Antarctic Bouvet Island are dependent territories and thus not considered part of the Kingdom. Norway also lays claim to a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land, until 1814, the kingdom included the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. It also included Isle of Man until 1266, Shetland and Orkney until 1468, Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometres and a population of 5,258,317. The country shares a long border with Sweden. Norway is bordered by Finland and Russia to the north-east, Norway has an extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea. King Harald V of the Dano-German House of Glücksburg is the current King of Norway, erna Solberg became Prime Minister in 2013, replacing Jens Stoltenberg. A constitutional monarchy, Norway divides state power between the Parliament, the Cabinet and the Supreme Court, as determined by the 1814 Constitution, the kingdom is established as a merger of several petty kingdoms. By the traditional count from the year 872, the kingdom has existed continuously for 1,144 years, Norway has both administrative and political subdivisions on two levels, counties and municipalities. The Sámi people have an amount of self-determination and influence over traditional territories through the Sámi Parliament. Norway maintains close ties with the European Union and the United States, the country maintains a combination of market economy and a Nordic welfare model with universal health care and a comprehensive social security system. Norway has extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas, minerals, lumber, seafood, the petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of the countrys gross domestic product. On a per-capita basis, Norway is the worlds largest producer of oil, the country has the fourth-highest per capita income in the world on the World Bank and IMF lists. On the CIAs GDP per capita list which includes territories and some regions, from 2001 to 2006, and then again from 2009 to 2017, Norway had the highest Human Development Index ranking in the world. It also has the highest inequality-adjusted ranking, Norway ranks first on the World Happiness Report, the OECD Better Life Index, the Index of Public Integrity and the Democracy Index. Norway has two names, Noreg in Nynorsk and Norge in Bokmål. The name Norway comes from the Old English word Norðrveg mentioned in 880, meaning way or way leading to the north. In contrasting with suðrvegar southern way for Germany, and austrvegr eastern way for the Baltic, the Anglo-Saxon of Britain also referred to the kingdom of Norway in 880 as Norðmanna land. This was the area of Harald Fairhair, the first king of Norway, and because of him

18.
Schleswig, Schleswig-Holstein
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Schleswig is a town in the northeastern part of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is the capital of the Kreis Schleswig-Flensburg and it has a population of about 27,000, the main industries being leather and food processing. It takes its name from the Schlei, an inlet of the Baltic sea at the end of which it sits, Schleswig or Slesvig therefore means bay of the Schlei. The urban area ranges from 0 to 20 m above sea level, the nearest major cities are Flensburg, Husum and Kiel. Autobahn 7 runs immediately west of the city, highways 76 and 77 end in Schleswig and B201 runs to the north of the town. Schleswig station is a stop for InterCity and Intercity-Express trains and is on the Hamburg–Neumünster–Flensburg, the climate is humid and maritime. The annual mean temperature is 8 °C and precipitation averages 925 mm, the Viking settlement of Hedeby, located south of the modern town, was first mentioned in 804. It was a settlement in the Baltic region, dominating the area for more than 200 years. In 1050, following several destructions, the population was moved to the shore of the Schlei. In 1066 Hedeby was finally destroyed, and Schleswig remained as a part of the Danish kingdom, in 1544, Gottorf Castle became the residence of the local rulers. The dukes of Gottorf were vassals of the Danish kings and ruled much of present-day Schleswig-Holstein. In 1721, when the Great Northern War ended, the dukes of Gottorf lost their power, after the Second Schleswig War, Schleswig was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia

19.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed

20.
Saxony
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Its capital is Dresden, and its largest city is Leipzig. Saxony is the tenth largest of Germanys sixteen states, with an area of 18,413 square kilometres, located in the middle of a large, formerly all German-speaking part of Europe, the history of the state of Saxony spans more than a millennium. It has been a medieval duchy, an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire, a kingdom, the area of the modern state of Saxony should not be confused with Old Saxony, the area inhabited by Saxons. Old Saxony corresponds approximately to the modern German states of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony is divided into 10 districts,1. After a reform in 2008, these regions - with some alterations of their respective areas - were called Direktionsbezirke, in 2012, the authorities of these regions were merged into one central authority, the Landesdirektion Sachsen. The Erzgebirgskreis district includes the Ore Mountains, and the Schweiz-Osterzgebirge district includes Saxon Switzerland, the largest cities in Saxony according to the 31 December 2015 estimate. To this can be added that Leipzig forms a metropolitan region with Halle. The latter city is located just across the border to Saxony-Anhalt, Leipzig shares for instance an S-train system and an airport with Halle. Saxony has, after Saxony Anhalt, the most vibrant economy of the states of the former East Germany and its economy grew by 1. 9% in 2010. Nonetheless, unemployment remains above the German average, the eastern part of Germany, excluding Berlin, qualifies as an Objective 1 development-region within the European Union, and is eligible to receive investment subsidies of up to 30% until 2013. FutureSAX, a business competition and entrepreneurial support organisation, has been in operation since 2002. Microchip makers near Dresden have given the region the nickname Silicon Saxony, the publishing and porcelain industries of the region are well known, although their contributions to the regional economy are no longer significant. Today the automobile industry, machinery production and services contribute to the development of the region. Saxony is also one of the most renowned tourist destinations in Germany - especially the cities of Leipzig and Dresden, new tourist destinations are developing, notably in the lake district of Lausitz. Saxony reported an unemployment of 8. 8% in 2014. By comparison the average in the former GDR was 9. 8% and 6. 7% for Germany overall, the unemployment rate reached 8. 2% in May 2015. The Leipzig area, which recently was among the regions with the highest unemployment rate, could benefit greatly from investments by Porsche. With the VW Phaeton factory in Dresden, and many part suppliers, zwickau is another major Volkswagen location

21.
Runic transliteration and transcription
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Every step has its challenges, but most Younger Futhark inscriptions are quite easy to interpret. Most Scandinavians can learn to read runic inscriptions with a little training, the Elder Futhark inscriptions, however, are much more challenging and they demand a great deal of knowledge in historical linguistics. Standard works such as Sveriges runinskrifter contain extensive presentations of the inscriptions have been interpreted throughout the centuries. It is practically impossible to render the runes in all the ways that they appear in the inscriptions. Transliteration means that the runes are represented by a corresponding Latin letter in bold, no consideration is given to the sound the rune represented in the actual inscription, and a good example of this is the ansuz rune, which could vary greatly in shape. In the oldest Younger Futhark inscriptions, it represented a nasal a, as in French an. However, some continued to use the ansuz rune for an a phoneme. Sometimes the runes are dotted which means that a dot has been added, dotted u, k and i are transliterated as y, g and e though they are rather variations of the non-dotted runes than runes in their own right. Bind runes are marked with an arch, some bind runes look in a way that makes it impossible to know which rune preceded the other, and then the scholar has to test the various combinations that give a comprehensible word. Thus all transliterations of bind runes are scholarly interpretations, runes that are known from older depictions but that have since disappeared are rendered within square brackets. The runes are transcribed into normalized spellings of the languages the runes were written in, since a single rune may represent several different phonemes, normalizations can differ greatly from transliterations. The þ rune can represent both the Old Norse letter ð or þ

22.
Danish language
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There are also minor Danish-speaking communities in Norway, Sweden, Spain, the United States, Canada, Brazil and Argentina. Due to immigration and language shift in urban areas, around 15–20% of the population of Greenland speak Danish as their home language. Along with the other North Germanic languages, Danish is a descendant of Old Norse, until the 16th century, Danish was a continuum of dialects spoken from Schleswig to Scania with no standard variety or spelling conventions. With the Protestant Reformation and the introduction of printing, a language was developed which was based on the educated Copenhagen dialect. It spread through use in the system and administration though German. Today, traditional Danish dialects have all but disappeared, though there are variants of the standard language. The main differences in language are between generations, with youth language being particularly innovative, Danish has a very large vowel inventory comprising 27 phonemically distinctive vowels, and its prosody is characterized by the distinctive phenomenon stød, a kind of laryngeal phonation type. The grammar is moderately inflective with strong and weak conjugations and inflections, nouns and demonstrative pronouns distinguish common and neutral gender. As in English, Danish only has remnants of a case system, particularly in the pronouns. Its syntax is V2, with the verb always occupying the second slot in the sentence. Danish is a Germanic language of the North Germanic branch, other names for this group are the Nordic or Scandinavian languages. Along with Swedish, Danish descends from the Eastern dialects of the Old Norse language, Scandinavian languages are often considered a dialect continuum, where there are no sharp dividing lines between the different vernacular languages. Like Norwegian and Swedish, Danish was significantly influenced by Low German in the Middle Ages, Danish itself can be divided into three main dialect areas, West Danish, Insular Danish, and East Danish. Danish is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Swedish, both Swedes and Danes also understand Norwegian better than they understand each others languages. By the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had some changes. This language was called the Danish tongue, or Norse language. Norse was written in the alphabet, first with the elder futhark. From the 7th century the common Norse language began to undergo changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, most of the changes separating East Norse from West Norse started as innovations in Denmark, that spread through Scania into Sweden and by maritime contact to southern Norway

23.
Icelandic language
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Icelandic /aɪsˈlændɪk/ is a North Germanic language, the language of Iceland. It is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages, historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the colonisation of the Americas. Icelandic, Faroese, Norn, and Western Norwegian formerly constituted West Nordic, Danish, Eastern Norwegian, modern Norwegian Bokmål is influenced by both groups, leading the Nordic languages to be divided into mainland Scandinavian languages and Insular Nordic. Most Western European languages have reduced levels of inflection, particularly noun declension. In contrast, Icelandic retains a four-case synthetic grammar comparable to, Icelandic is distinguished by a wide assortment of irregular declensions. Icelandic also has many instances of oblique cases without any governing word, for example, many of the various Latin ablatives have a corresponding Icelandic dative. The vast majority of Icelandic speakers—about 320, 000—live in Iceland, more than 8,000 Icelandic speakers live in Denmark, of whom approximately 3,000 are students. The language is spoken by some 5,000 people in the United States. Notably in the province of Manitoba, while 97% of the population of Iceland consider Icelandic their mother tongue, the language is in decline in some communities outside Iceland, particularly in Canada. Icelandic speakers outside Iceland represent recent emigration in almost all cases except Gimli, Manitoba, the state-funded Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies serves as a centre for preserving the medieval Icelandic manuscripts and studying the language and its literature. Since 1995, on 16 November each year, the birthday of 19th-century poet Jónas Hallgrímsson is celebrated as Icelandic Language Day, the oldest preserved texts in Icelandic were written around 1100 AD. Much of the texts are based on poetry and laws traditionally preserved orally, the most famous of the texts, which were written in Iceland from the 12th century onward, are the Icelandic Sagas. They comprise the historical works and the eddaic poems, the language of the sagas is Old Icelandic, a western dialect of Old Norse. Danish rule of Iceland from 1380 to 1918 had little effect on the evolution of Icelandic, though more archaic than the other living Germanic languages, Icelandic changed markedly in pronunciation from the 12th to the 16th century, especially in vowels. The modern Icelandic alphabet has developed from an established in the 19th century. The later Rasmus Rask standard was a re-creation of the old treatise, with changes to fit concurrent Germanic conventions. Various archaic features, as the letter ð, had not been used much in later centuries, rasks standard constituted a major change in practice. Later 20th-century changes include the use of é instead of je, apart from the addition of new vocabulary, written Icelandic has not changed substantially since the 11th century, when the first texts were written on vellum

24.
Norwegian language
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Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken mainly in Norway, where it is the official language. Along with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants. These Scandinavian languages, together with Faroese and Icelandic as well as extinct languages. Faroese and Icelandic are hardly mutually intelligible with Norwegian in their spoken form because continental Scandinavian has diverged from them, as established by law and governmental policy, the two official forms of written Norwegian are Bokmål and Nynorsk. The official Norwegian Language Council is responsible for regulating the two forms, and recommends the terms Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk in English. Two other written forms without official status also exist, one and it is regulated by the unofficial Norwegian Academy, which translates the name as Standard Norwegian. Nynorsk and Bokmål provide standards for how to write Norwegian, no standard of spoken Norwegian is officially sanctioned, and most Norwegians speak their own dialects in all circumstances. Thus, unlike in other countries, the use of any Norwegian dialect. Outside Eastern Norway, this variation is not used. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, Danish was the written language of Norway. As a result, the development of modern written Norwegian has been subject to strong controversy related to nationalism, rural versus urban discourse, historically, Bokmål is a Norwegianised variety of Danish, while Nynorsk is a language form based on Norwegian dialects and puristic opposition to Danish. The unofficial form known as Riksmål is considered more conservative than Bokmål, Norwegians are educated in both Bokmål and Nynorsk. A2005 poll indicates that 86. 3% use primarily Bokmål as their written language,5. 5% use both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and 7. 5% use primarily Nynorsk. Thus, 13% are frequently writing Nynorsk, though the majority speak dialects that resemble Nynorsk more closely than Bokmål. Broadly speaking, Nynorsk writing is widespread in western Norway, though not in major urban areas, examples are Setesdal, the western part of Telemark county and several municipalities in Hallingdal, Valdres, and Gudbrandsdalen. It is little used elsewhere, but 30–40 years ago, it also had strongholds in rural parts of Trøndelag. Today, not only is Nynorsk the official language of four of the 19 Norwegian counties, NRK, the Norwegian broadcasting corporation, broadcasts in both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and all governmental agencies are required to support both written languages. Bokmål is used in 92% of all publications, and Nynorsk in 8%

25.
Uppland
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Uppland is a historical province or landskap on the eastern coast of Sweden, just north of Stockholm, the capital. It borders Södermanland, Västmanland and Gästrikland and it is also bounded by lake Mälaren and the Baltic sea. It has a short and strangely shaped land border with Åland. The name literally means up land, a name which is encountered in especially older English literature. Its Latinised form, which is used, is Uplandia. The traditional provinces of Sweden serve no administrative or political purposes, the corresponding administrative county, or län, is Uppsala County, which occupies the larger part of the territory. The bulk of the population, however, is within Stockholm County, minor parts of the province are also in Västmanland County, Gävleborg County and Södermanland County. Upplands arms were granted in 1560, distinctive in its depiction of a Globus cruciger, historically, Uppland ranked as a duchy and the coat of arms is represented with a ducal coronet. Blazoned thus, Gules, a Royal Orb Or gemmed of the field, despite the fact that the Uppsala län has a different name and a smaller territory it was granted the same coat of arms in 1940. Uppland was historically divided into chartered cities and districts, within Roslagen they were called skeppslag, and in the rest of the province hundreds. The abovementioned districts and cities have no administrative function today, the provincial population corresponds to the different overlapping counties as follows, Uppland is the birth place of Saint Brigitta of Sweden. The earliest unambiguous mention of the province of Uppland comes from the 1296, the Swedish capital of Stockholm is divided between two provinces. The southern half lies in Södermanland and the half in Uppland. Prince Waldemar Princess Ingiburga, his wife Prince Gustav Prince Sigvard Uppsala is the seat of the archbishop of the Lutheran Church of Sweden. The archaeological site Birka and the castle of Drottningholm are UNESCO World Heritage sites, football in the province is administered by Upplands Fotbollförbund. Uppland - Tourist site Uppland - Tourist information

26.
Runestone styles
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The term runestone style in the singular may refer to the Urnes style. The style or design of runestones varied during the Viking Age, the early runestones were simple in design, but towards the end of the runestone era they became increasingly complex and made by travelling runemasters such as Öpir and Visäte. A categorization of the styles was developed by Anne-Sophie Gräslund in the 1990s and her systematization is considered to have been a break-through and is today a standard. The styles are RAK, Fp, Pr1, Pr2, Pr3, Pr4 and Pr5, and they cover the period 980-1130, which was the period during which most runestones were made. The styles Pr1 and Pr2 correspond to the Ringerike style, whereas Pr3, Pr4, below follows a brief presentation of the various styles by showing sample runestones according to Rundatas annotation. RAK is the oldest style and covers the period 980-1015 AD and this style has no dragon heads and the ends of the runic bands are straight. This style is from the period c and it is characterized by runic bands that end with animal heads seen from above. In the styles called Pr1, Pr2, Pr3, Pr4 and Pr5 and this style is contemporary with FP dated to c. 1010- c.1050 when it was succeeded by Pr3 and this style is only somewhat younger than the previous style and it is dated to c. 1050, and it was succeeded by Pr3. This style succeeded FP, Pr1 and Pr2 and is dated to c and this style appeared somewhat later c. This style was the last one before runestones stopped being raised and this style is used by the Rundata project, although it does not attribute it to Gräslunds model. The style is common in western Södermanland and it is characterized by bordered crosses, norse art Runemaster Anglo-Saxon art Rundata Edberg, Rune. Runriket Täby-Vallentuna – en Handledning Fuglesang, Signe Horn, swedish Runestones of the Eleventh Century, Ornament and Dating, Runeninschriften als Quellen Interdisziplinärer Forschung. The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings

27.
Viking art
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Viking art has many design elements in common with Celtic, Germanic, the later Romanesque and Eastern European art, sharing many influences with each of these traditions. The alternative name for the Viking people, Norse or Norsemen, Viking raiders attacked wealthy targets on the north-western coasts of Europe from the late 8th until the mid-11th century CE. Pre-Christian traders and sea raiders, the Vikings first enter recorded history with their attack on the Christian monastic community on Lindisfarne Island in 793, the Vikings initially employed their longships to invade and attack European coasts, harbours and river settlements on a seasonal basis. Evidence exists for Vikings reaching Newfoundland well before the voyages of Christopher Columbus discovered the New World. Trading and merchant activities were accompanied by settlement and colonisation in many of these territories, importantly, it was the English archaeologist David M. Together these scholars have combined authority with accessibility to promote the understanding of Viking art as a cultural expression. The artistic record therefore, as it has survived to the present day, ongoing archaeological excavation and opportunistic finds, of course, may improve this situation in the future, as indeed they have in the recent past. Wood was undoubtedly the primary material of choice for Viking artists, being easy to carve, inexpensive. The same is true of the textile arts, although weaving. Subsequently, and likely influenced by the spread of Christianity, the use of carved stone for permanent memorials became more prevalent, jewellery was worn by both men and women, though of different types. Married women fastened their overdresses near the shoulder with matching pairs of large brooches, modern scholars often call them tortoise brooches because of their domed shape. The shapes and styles of womens paired brooches varied regionally, women often strung metal chains or strings of beads between the brooches, or suspended ornaments from the bottom of the brooches. Men wore rings on their fingers, arms and necks, and held their cloaks closed with penannular brooches and their weapons were often richly decorated on areas such as sword hilts. Decorated metalwork of a nature is frequently recovered from Viking period graves. The deceased was dressed in their best clothing and jewellery, and was interred with weapons, tools, a non-visual source of information for Viking art lies in skaldic verse, the complex form of oral poetry composed during the Viking Age and passed on until written down centuries later. Several verses speak of painted forms of decoration that have but rarely survived on wood, the 9th century skald poet Bragi Boddason, for example, cites four apparently unrelated scenes painted on a shield. One of these depicted the god Thors fishing expedition, which motif is also referenced in a 10th-century poem by Úlfr Uggason describing the paintings in a newly constructed hall in Iceland. The art historian Bernhard Salin was the first to systematise Germanic animal ornament, the latter two were subsequently subdivided by Arwidsson into three further styles, Style C, flourishing during the 7th century and into the 8th century, before being largely replaced by Style D

28.
Lingsberg Runestones
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The two intact runestones were raised by members of the same family, and on U241 they engraved for posterity that a grandfather had taken two Danegelds in England. Because the receipt of the Danegeld indicates likely service with the Scandinavian troops in the Thingmen from 1018 to 1066 and this runestone is known locally as the Lingsbergsstenen 1 and was raised at the end of a causeway facing U241. Today, the causeway is only seen as traces in a field, the area was much more marshy in the past and difficult to traverse until the water level in a local lake, named Angarn, in Angarnsjöängen Nature Reserve was lowered in the 19th century. The inscription consists of text on two serpents or lindworms that bracket a Christian cross and some beasts. The final portion of the text translates as and Holmfríðr in memory of her husbandman is carved on the outside of the serpent to the right. U240 is classified as being carved in runestone style Pr3, which is known as Urnes style. This runestone style is characterized by slim and stylized animals that are interwoven into tight patterns, the animal heads are typically seen in profile with slender almond-shaped eyes and upwardly curled appendages on the noses and the necks. The runic text on U240 was intended to be together with that on U241 to form a unified message. Based on stylistic analysis, the inscription has been attributed to the runemaster Åsmund and this runestone, known locally as the Lingsbergsstenen 2, was originally located at the end of a causeway facing U240. It was discovered in 1909 when plowing a field and it has been moved and is currently in the courtyard of the main building of Lingsberg. The inscription consists of runic text carved on a serpent that is under a cross. Similar to U240, U241 is classified as being carved in runestone style Pr3 and is attributed to the runemaster Åsmund. The runic text mentions Húskarl and Sveinn like U241, except for Holmfríðr, and it adds Halfdans father Ulfríkr, who had taken two danegelds in England. Unfortunately, it not mention which leaders paid the danegelds. As noted above, the text of U240 and U241 were intended to be read together to form a unified message, with the text on U241 beginning with the Old Norse word en meaning. It was common to only carve a single rune for two letters, even when the letters were at the end of one word and the beginning of a second word. When the text shown as Latin characters, the runes are doubled. U241 has three examples in its runic text where this occurred, the runes onklanti are transliterated as o| |onklanti, kialtakit as kialt| |takit, and salukuþs as salu| |uk| |kuþs

29.
Style Pr3
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The term runestone style in the singular may refer to the Urnes style. The style or design of runestones varied during the Viking Age, the early runestones were simple in design, but towards the end of the runestone era they became increasingly complex and made by travelling runemasters such as Öpir and Visäte. A categorization of the styles was developed by Anne-Sophie Gräslund in the 1990s and her systematization is considered to have been a break-through and is today a standard. The styles are RAK, Fp, Pr1, Pr2, Pr3, Pr4 and Pr5, and they cover the period 980-1130, which was the period during which most runestones were made. The styles Pr1 and Pr2 correspond to the Ringerike style, whereas Pr3, Pr4, below follows a brief presentation of the various styles by showing sample runestones according to Rundatas annotation. RAK is the oldest style and covers the period 980-1015 AD and this style has no dragon heads and the ends of the runic bands are straight. This style is from the period c and it is characterized by runic bands that end with animal heads seen from above. In the styles called Pr1, Pr2, Pr3, Pr4 and Pr5 and this style is contemporary with FP dated to c. 1010- c.1050 when it was succeeded by Pr3 and this style is only somewhat younger than the previous style and it is dated to c. 1050, and it was succeeded by Pr3. This style succeeded FP, Pr1 and Pr2 and is dated to c and this style appeared somewhat later c. This style was the last one before runestones stopped being raised and this style is used by the Rundata project, although it does not attribute it to Gräslunds model. The style is common in western Södermanland and it is characterized by bordered crosses, norse art Runemaster Anglo-Saxon art Rundata Edberg, Rune. Runriket Täby-Vallentuna – en Handledning Fuglesang, Signe Horn, swedish Runestones of the Eleventh Century, Ornament and Dating, Runeninschriften als Quellen Interdisziplinärer Forschung. The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings

30.
Richard Dybeck
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Richard Dybeck was a Swedish jurist, antiquarian, and lyricist, and today is mainly remembered as the author of the lyrics to what is now the de facto Swedish national anthem, Du gamla, Du fria. Dybeck was born in Odensvi Prästgård just outside the town Köping and he was the son of a clergyman, went to gymnasium in Västerås, and later matriculated at Uppsala University in 1831. He completed his civil service degree in law in 1834 and entered the Svea hovrätt appeal court and he held a number of positions in the court system during the following years, but eventually began to spend all his time on his antiquarian and historical research. He was known to be interested in Asian culture, as was seen by his collection of historic prints and lithographs which originated from places like Myanmar. Richard Dybeck at Find a Grave

31.
Orkesta Runestones
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The Orkesta Runestones are 11th century runestones engraved in Old Norse with the younger futhark that are located at the church of Orkesta north-east of Stockholm in Sweden. Several of the stones are raised by, or in memory of, the leaders of the three expeditions were Skagul Toste, Thorkell the Tall and Canute the Great. This Ulfr also made the Risbyle Runestones in the same region, there are two other runestones that mention the danegeld and both of them are found in the vicinity. This runestone is in runestone style Pr3, which is known as Urnes style. This runestone style is characterized by slim and stylized animals that are interwoven into tight patterns, the animals heads are typically seen in profile with slender almond-shaped eyes and upwardly curled appendages on the noses and the necks. Usnekin uk siknet uk sihuiþ lata reis siin eft bs faþur sin Osnikinn ok Signiutr ok Sigviðr lata ræisa stæin æftiʀ Brusa, Ósníkinn and Signjótr and Sigviðr have raised the stone in memory of Brúsi, their father. This runestone is in runestone style Pr4, which is known as Urnes style. Iaorn * u moþur * siena. -. -bi sialu, stæin æftiʀ faðu nn Biorn ok moður sina. The stone in memory of his father Bjôrn and his mother, the runestone U335 was raised to commemorate the building of a new bridge by Holmi. He dedicated the bridge and the runestone to his father Hæra, the reference to bridge-building in the runic text is fairly common in rune stones during this time period. Some are Christian references related to passing the bridge into the afterlife, at this time, the Catholic Church sponsored the building of roads and bridges through the use of indulgences in return for intercession for the soul. There are many examples of bridge stones dated from the eleventh century, including runic inscriptions Sö101, U489. Like many other runestones, it was discovered in the walls of a church, where it still remains. Ulmi × lit × risa × stin × þina × uk × bru þisi × itiʀ × iru × faþur sin × uskarl × sifruþaʀ Holmi let ræisa stæin þenna ok bro þessi æftiʀ Hæru, faður sinn, huskarl Sigrøðaʀ. Holmi had this stone raised and this bridge in memory of Hæra, his father, Sigrøðrs housecarl The runestone U336 is raised by Ulf of Borresta, Ulf adds that they both lived at Borresta. The name Ónæmr, which means slow learner, is mentioned on two nearby runestones, U112 and U328, and so the three runestones are held to refer to the same person. Ulfr had this stone raised in memory of Ónæmr, his fathers brother and this runestone was possibly in style Pr3. It formed a monument together with U344, below in Yttergärde, although it has disappeared, the inscription was recorded during a survey of runestones in the 1700s

32.
Ansuz (rune)
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Ansuz is the conventional name given to the a-rune of the Elder Futhark, ᚨ. The name is based on Proto-Germanic *ansuz, denoting a deity belonging to the pantheon in Germanic paganism. The shape of the rune is likely from Neo-Etruscan a, like Latin A ultimately from Phoenician aleph, in the Norwegian rune poem, óss is given a meaning of estuary while in the Anglo-Saxon one, ōs ᚩ takes the Latin meaning of mouth. The Younger Futhark rune is transliterated as ą to distinguish it from the new ár rune, since the name of a is attested in the Gothic alphabet as ahsa or aza, the common Germanic name of the rune may thus either have been *ansuz god, or *ahsam ear. The Anglo-Saxon futhorc split the Elder Futhark a rune into three independent runes due to the development of the system in Anglo-Frisian. These three runes are ōs ᚩ, ac oak ᚪ, and æsc ᚫ ash, the Younger Futhark corresponding to the Elder Futhark ansuz rune is ᚬ, called óss. This represented the phoneme /ɑ̃/, and sometimes /æ/ and /o/, the variant grapheme ᚯ became independent as representing the phoneme /ø/ during the 11th to 14th centuries. In the Icelandic rune poem, the name óss refers to Odin, ᚬÓss er algingautr ok ásgarðs jöfurr, Óss is aged Gautr and prince of Ásgardr and lord of Vallhalla

33.
Vikings
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The term is also commonly extended in modern English and other vernaculars to the inhabitants of Viking home communities during what has become known as the Viking Age. Facilitated by advanced seafaring skills, and characterised by the longship, Viking activities at times also extended into the Mediterranean littoral, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. A romanticized picture of Vikings as noble savages began to emerge in the 18th century, current popular representations of the Vikings are typically based on cultural clichés and stereotypes, complicating modern appreciation of the Viking legacy. One etymology derives víking from the feminine vík, meaning creek, inlet, various theories have been offered that the word viking may be derived from the name of the historical Norwegian district of Viken, meaning a person from Viken. According to this theory, the word simply described persons from this area, however, there are a few major problems with this theory. People from the Viken area were not called Viking in Old Norse manuscripts, in addition, that explanation could only explain the masculine and ignore the feminine, which is a serious problem because the masculine is easily derived from the feminine but hardly vice versa. The form also occurs as a name on some Swedish rune stones. There is little indication of any negative connotation in the term before the end of the Viking Age and this is found in the Proto-Nordic verb *wikan, ‘to turn’, similar to Old Icelandic víkja ‘to move, to turn’, with well-attested nautical usages. In that case, the idea behind it seems to be that the rower moves aside for the rested rower on the thwart when he relieves him. A víkingr would then originally have been a participant on a sea journey characterized by the shifting of rowers, in that case, the word Viking was not originally connected to Scandinavian seafarers but assumed this meaning when the Scandinavians begun to dominate the seas. In Old English, the word wicing appears first in the Anglo-Saxon poem, Widsith, in Old English, and in the history of the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen written by Adam of Bremen in about 1070, the term generally referred to Scandinavian pirates or raiders. As in the Old Norse usages, the term is not employed as a name for any people or culture in general, the word does not occur in any preserved Middle English texts. The Vikings were known as Ascomanni ashmen by the Germans for the ash wood of their boats, Lochlannach by the Gaels, the modern day name for Sweden in several neighbouring countries is possibly derived from rōþs-, Ruotsi in Finnish and Rootsi in Estonian. The Slavs and the Byzantines also called them Varangians, Scandinavian bodyguards of the Byzantine emperors were known as the Varangian Guard. The Franks normally called them Northmen or Danes, while for the English they were known as Danes or heathen. It is used in distinction from Anglo-Saxon, similar terms exist for other areas, such as Hiberno-Norse for Ireland and Scotland. The period from the earliest recorded raids in the 790s until the Norman conquest of England in 1066 is commonly known as the Viking Age of Scandinavian history, Vikings used the Norwegian Sea and Baltic Sea for sea routes to the south. The Normans were descended from Vikings who were given feudal overlordship of areas in northern France—the Duchy of Normandy—in the 10th century, in that respect, descendants of the Vikings continued to have an influence in northern Europe

34.
Skagul Toste
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Skoglar Toste or Skoglar Tosti was a legendary chieftain from the Swedish province of West Götaland. His name was due to his experience in battle. Toste is mentioned in sagas, most notable in Heimskringla. According to Snorri Sturluson, he was the father of Sigrid the Haughty, for some time he gave refuge to Harald Grenske, who later came back to woo Sigrid, only to be killed by her for his persistence. According to the sagas, Skagul Toste was also the father of Ulf Tostesson, father of Ragnvald Ulfsson, Toste is said to have collected great riches when he demanded danegeld as he led a Viking army to England in 970. That was the first that Toste paid, ancestral Roots of Certain American Colonists Who Came to America Before 1700 by Frederick Lewis Weis, Lines, 241-5, 243A-20

35.
Thorkel the High
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Thorkell the Tall, also known as Thorkell the High in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was a prominent member of the Jomsviking order and a notable lord. Thorkell is a figure, but his career, especially its early part, is steeped in associations with the legendary Jomsvikings. Thorkell took part in the Battle of Hjörungavágr in 986 and in the Battle of Swold in 1000 and he attacked England in 1010, landing near Ipswich on the shores of the River Orwell at Nacton with a large army, defeating the local army sent from Ipswich. He was eventually paid an unusually large Danegeld in 1011, Thorkells men took Archbishop Ælfheah of Canterbury hostage, who had previously been instrumental in negotiating danegeld payments. It is said that Alphege refused to be exchanged for ransom organised by Eadric Streona as he did not wish to further impoverish his countrymen, as a consequence of this he was murdered by Thorkells men during a drunken feast. Sensing that he was losing control over his men, Thorkell and he and his men entered into the service of King Æthelred the Unready, whom they fought under in 1013 against the invasion of king Sweyn Forkbeard and his son Cnut. After the death of Sweyn and the English attacks on the Danish invaders, Thorkells brother Heming was killed by Æthelreds men, and Thorkell and Thane Wiffen went back to Denmark, with a score to settle in England. He was to return with the king in 1015. An explanation for Cnuts acceptance of Thorkell and Erics allegiance, and he himself held a score against the men responsible for the betrayal of oaths of allegiance given by the English nobles after his fathers conquest. If it was Thorkells men who taught Cnut to fight his battles, in 1021, Jarl Thorkell fell out with king Cnut, and having to make himself scarce went to Denmark. This appears to have been as a result of a trial of his wife, Thorkell had sworn to her innocence and consequently lost face. He was soon reconciled with Cnut again, who proclaimed him Jarl of Denmark once more, although he seems to disappear in 1023, as there is no mention of him after this point. It may be he was too old for any more conflict. It may also be that he was cast out of the kingdom, to return to Jomsborg or Scania, equally, he might have been dead soon after he was made Jarl of Denmark with causes either natural or malevolent

36.
Style RAK
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The term runestone style in the singular may refer to the Urnes style. The style or design of runestones varied during the Viking Age, the early runestones were simple in design, but towards the end of the runestone era they became increasingly complex and made by travelling runemasters such as Öpir and Visäte. A categorization of the styles was developed by Anne-Sophie Gräslund in the 1990s and her systematization is considered to have been a break-through and is today a standard. The styles are RAK, Fp, Pr1, Pr2, Pr3, Pr4 and Pr5, and they cover the period 980-1130, which was the period during which most runestones were made. The styles Pr1 and Pr2 correspond to the Ringerike style, whereas Pr3, Pr4, below follows a brief presentation of the various styles by showing sample runestones according to Rundatas annotation. RAK is the oldest style and covers the period 980-1015 AD and this style has no dragon heads and the ends of the runic bands are straight. This style is from the period c and it is characterized by runic bands that end with animal heads seen from above. In the styles called Pr1, Pr2, Pr3, Pr4 and Pr5 and this style is contemporary with FP dated to c. 1010- c.1050 when it was succeeded by Pr3 and this style is only somewhat younger than the previous style and it is dated to c. 1050, and it was succeeded by Pr3. This style succeeded FP, Pr1 and Pr2 and is dated to c and this style appeared somewhat later c. This style was the last one before runestones stopped being raised and this style is used by the Rundata project, although it does not attribute it to Gräslunds model. The style is common in western Södermanland and it is characterized by bordered crosses, norse art Runemaster Anglo-Saxon art Rundata Edberg, Rune. Runriket Täby-Vallentuna – en Handledning Fuglesang, Signe Horn, swedish Runestones of the Eleventh Century, Ornament and Dating, Runeninschriften als Quellen Interdisziplinärer Forschung. The Oxford Illustrated History of the Vikings

37.
Jutland
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Jutland, also known as the Cimbric or Cimbrian Peninsula, is a peninsula of Northern Europe that forms the continental portion of Denmark and the northern portion of Germany. The names are derived from the Jutes and the Cimbri, respectively, jutlands terrain is relatively flat, with open lands, heaths, plains and peat bogs in the west and a more elevated and slightly hilly terrain in the east. Jutland is a peninsula bounded by the North Sea to the west, the Skagerrak to the north, geographically and historically, Jutland comprises the regions of South Jutland, West Jutland, East Jutland and North Jutland. There are several subdivisions and regional names, some of which are still occasionally encountered today. They include Nørrejyllland, Sydvestjylland, Nordvestjylland and Slesvig, historically, Jutland was regulated by the Law Code of Jutland. This civic code covered the Jutland Peninsula from the north of the River Eider to Funen as well as the North Jutlandic Island. The Danish part of Jutland is currently divided into three regions, North Denmark Region, Central Denmark Region and Region of Southern Denmark. These three regions have an area of 29,775 km2, a population of 2,599,104. The northernmost part of Jutland is separated from the mainland by the Limfjord and this area is called the North Jutlandic Island, Vendsyssel-Thy or simply Jutland north of the Limfjord, it is only partly co-terminous with the North Jutland region. Inhabitants of Als would agree to be South Jutlanders, but not necessarily Jutlanders, the Danish Wadden Sea Islands and the German North Frisian Islands stretch along the southwest coast of Jutland in the German Bight. Jutland has historically been one of the three lands of Denmark, the two being Scania and Zealand. Before that, according to Ptolemy, Jutland or the Cimbric Chersonese was the home of Teutons, Cimbri, many Angles, Saxons and Jutes migrated from Continental Europe to Great Britain starting in c.450 AD. The Angles themselves gave their name to the new emerging kingdoms called England and this is thought by some to be related to the invasion of Europe by the Huns from Asia. Saxons and Frisii migrated to the region in the part of the Christian era. Old Saxony was later on referred to as Holstein, during the First World War, the Battle of Jutland in the North Sea west of Jutland was one of the largest naval battles in history. In this pitched battle, the British Royal Navy engaged the Imperial German Navy, the British fleet sustained greater losses, but remained in control of the North Sea, so in strategic terms, most historians regard Jutland either as a British victory or as indecisive. The distinctive Jutish dialects differ substantially from standard Danish, especially West Jutlandic, dialect usage, although in decline, is better preserved in Jutland than in eastern Denmark, and Jutlander speech remains a stereotype among many Copenhageners and eastern Danes. Administratively, Danish Jutland comprises three of Denmarks five regions, namely the Region Nordjylland, Region Midtjylland and the half of Region of Southern Denmark

38.
Limfjord
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For the sea inlet in Croatia, see Lim. The Limfjord is a part of the sea, located in Denmark where it is regarded as a fjord ever since the Vikings. However it has inlets both from the North Sea and Kattegat and hence separates the island of North Jutlandic Island from the rest of the Jutland Peninsula and it extends from Thyborøn Channel on the North Sea to Hals on the Kattegat. It is approximately 180 kilometres long and of a shape with numerous bays, narrowings, and islands, most notably Mors. The Limfjord is not a fjord in the English geological sense in - in Danish and its main port is Aalborg, where a railway bridge and road bridge are built across Limfjorden to Nørresundby, while motorway E45 passes it through a tunnel to the east. Commercial ports also exist at Thisted, Nykøbing Mors, Skive, Løgstør, Struer, Lemvig, there are also bridges at Oddesund, Sallingsund, Vilsund, Aggersund and Sebbersund, and a number of ferry crossings. The Limurfjord had only an opening to the sea in the east from the early Middle Ages until 1825, in that year, the North Sea broke through from the west and created a second opening, turning the northern part of Jutland Vendsyssel-Thy into an island. An isthmus of shifting sand has separated the Limfjord from the North Sea during historic times, the present inlet, Thyborøn Channel, has existed only since 1862. A passage also existed during the Viking age, based on place names and the geography it is thought to have been to the south of the present one, between Ferring Sø and Hygum Nor. Canute the Great sailed into it in 1027 on his way back from England, according to Saxo Grammaticus it closed at some time around 1200. There are records of several floods piercing the isthmus during the 16th to early 19th century, from the 1840s the route got increasingly important, as Britain had opened for import of grain, and ships could return with British coal. However, the instability of Agger Channel made the towns of the western Limfjord look for a second option, in 1862, a flood pierced another opening, the Thyborøn Channel, through the remainder of Agger Tange. Agger Channel was continuously filling with sand and eventually closed in 1877, since then, the remaining Thyborøn Channel is kept open and navigable through dredging. The harbour of Thyborøn was built in 1914-18 and a town was founded, the two isthmuses have shifted eastwards since the 1800s. They are only being preserved by groynes, persistent sandpumping and two dams along their inward side. At Løgstør, where the western part of the Limfjord meets the narrow eastern section. Larger ships needed to be unloaded and reloaded when passing the banks, the Frederik VII Canal at Løgstør was completed in 1861 to allow for easier passage. Traffic had increased after the opening at Thyborøn became navigable

39.
Runemaster
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A runemaster or runecarver is a term for a specialist in making runestones. More than 100 names of runemasters are known from Viking Age Sweden with most of them from 11th century eastern Svealand, many anonymous runestones have more or less securely been attributed to these runemasters. During the 11th century, when most runestones were raised, there were a few professional runemasters and they and their apprentices were contracted to make runestones and when the work was finished, they sometimes signed the stone with the name of the runemaster. Many of the runic inscriptions have likely been completed by non-professional runecarvers for the practical purposes of burial rites or record-keeping. Due to the depictions of life, many of the nonprofessional runecarvers could have been anything from pirates to soldiers, merchants. The layout of Scandinavian towns provided centers where craftspeople could congregate, after the spread of Christianity in these regions, and the increase in runic literacy that followed, runes were used for record-keeping and found on things like weapons, ivory, and coins. Most early medieval Scandinavians were probably literate in runes, and most people probably carved messages on pieces of bone, however, it was difficult to make runestones, and in order to master it one also needed to be a stonemason. A number of historians have theorized that there may be a connection between the word erulaR, in the priesthood and the old Norse title jarl. This suggests that it is possible that those who were versed in runic arts formed their own secular upper class of learned runemasters. This claim is corroborated by the distribution of runestones throughout Eastern Norway. This continued with the prominence of runestones that accompanied the rise of Christianity. Many of the runic inscriptions carved during this time were done so for the pleasure of God, runes were often erected by long-distance explorers seeking to document their visits or memorialize their fallen comrades. Runecarvers on commission or on their own carved memorials and gravestones more than anything else, in addition, memorial runes could provide additional details about an individuals death with more accuracy than oral tradition. Additionally, based on the texts recovered, it appears that the families who raised runestones often had as many as six sons. This is most likely due to the practice of female infanticide, notable runemasters of the 11th to early 12th centuries include, Åsmund Kåresson Balle Fot Frögärd i Ösby Gunnborga Halvdan Öpir Torgöt Fotsarve Ulf of Borresta Visäte

40.
Bind rune
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A bind rune is a ligature of two or more runes. They are extremely rare in Viking Age inscriptions, but are common in earlier and later inscriptions, on some runestones, bind runes may have been ornamental and used to highlight the name of the carver. There are two types of bind runes, normal bind runes are formed of two adjacent runes which are joined together to form a single conjoined glyph, usually sharing a common vertical stroke. Bind runes are not common in Anglo-Saxon inscriptions, but double ligatures do sometimes occur and this is the only known certain Anglo-Saxon triple bind rune. There is possibly a faint ᛖ, ᛞ bind rune on the reverse of the amulet, the Bluetooth logo merges the runes analogous to the modern Latin alphabet letters h and b, ᚼ and ᛒ together, forming a bind rune. The two letters form the initials H B, alluding to the Danish king and viking raider Harald Bluetooth, the former logo of Thor Steinar featured a combination of a *tiwaz rune and a *sowilo rune ᛋ. This logo caused controversy as the runes were so combined that a part of the logo became very similar to the insignia of the Schutzstaffel

41.
Typographic ligature
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In writing and typography, a ligature occurs where two or more graphemes or letters are joined as a single glyph. An example is the character æ as used in English, in which the letters a and e are joined, the common ampersand developed from a ligature in which the handwritten Latin letters e and t were combined. The origin of typographical ligatures comes from the invention of writing with a stylus on fibrous material or clay, the earliest known script, Sumerian cuneiform, includes many cases of character combinations that, over time, gradually evolve from ligatures into separately recognizable characters. Ligatures figure prominently in many manuscripts, notably the Brahmic abugidas. Medieval scribes who wrote in Latin increased their speed by combining characters. Others conjoined letters for aesthetic purposes, for example, in blackletter, letters with right-facing bowls and those with left-facing bowls were written with the facing edges of the bowls superimposed. In many script forms, characters such as h, m, scribes also used notational abbreviations to avoid having to write a whole character in one stroke. Manuscripts in the century employed hundreds of such abbreviations. In hand writing, a ligature is made by joining two or more characters in atypical fashion by merging their parts or by writing one above or inside the other. While in printing, a ligature is a group of characters that is typeset as a unit, for example, in some cases the fi ligature prints the letters f and i with a greater separation than when they are typeset as separate letters. When printing with movable type was invented around 1450, typefaces included many ligatures and additional letters, Ligatures began to fall out of use due to their complexity in the 20th century. Sans serif typefaces, increasingly used for text, generally avoid ligatures, though notable exceptions include Gill Sans. Inexpensive phototypesetting machines in the 1970s also generally avoid them, the trend was further strengthened by the desktop publishing revolution starting around 1977 with the production of the Apple II. Early computer software in particular had no way to allow for ligature substitution, as most of the early PC development was designed for the English language dependence on ligatures did not carry over to digital. Ligature use fell as the number of traditional hand compositors and hot metal typesetting machine operators dropped since the mass of the IBM Selectric brand of electric typewriter in 1961. A designer active in the period commented, some of the world’s greatest typefaces were quickly becoming some of the world’s worst fonts, Ligatures have grown in popularity over the last 20 years due to an increasing interest in creating typesetting systems that evoke arcane designs and classical scripts. One of the first computer typesetting programs to take advantage of computer-driven typesetting was Donald Knuths TeX program, now the standard method of mathematical typesetting, its default fonts are explicitly based on nineteenth-century styles. Many new fonts feature extensive ligature sets, these include FF Scala, Seria and others by Martin Majoor, mrs Eaves by Zuzana Licko contains a particularly large set to allow designers to create dramatic display text with a feel of antiquity